The making of an Amphibious E-scooter. Part 1

Why didn't two-wheeler corporations come up with an amphibious vehicle?

I can't give you an answer to this question, but I will show you an easy way

to make one yourself. This without fancy materials and esoteric knowledge.

The costs of materials to make this happen does not exceed 150 euro or

200 US dollar. There are a couple of remarks to make to this conversion.

-  Scooter brand/type: My conversion is based on a lightweight step of 43 kg,

   a 36V/12Ah battery and a 450W motor.

-  This conversion can be used with different kind of floating body's.

-  This conversion is a prototype, a testversion.

-  The principles:

a- This amphibious step has to go on the road, as easy as on water.

b- All the requirements for the use in water have to be 'on-board'.     

c- Single person set-up for use in the water, within 10 minutes.

The history of the Amphi-Scooter is very short, to be exact; an englishman

converted in 1965 a Lambretta J125  as amphibious scooter.

Now, nearly 45 later, I am the first person to make one as an open hardware

project, today with an electric mini scooter.

Why a mini e-scooter? It's low in weight, it has a low centre of gravity, it's

non-polluting and ear-friendly. Beside all, it's fun to drive this thing.

The most important part of this project is to take into consideration what

floating body's to use and the way the amphi-e-step is propelled in the

water. After many hours thinking, watching and calculating, I choose to

use skippyballs and storeboxes as floaters, a propeller for locomotion.

The main reason is, that skippyballs are inflatable, strong, many size's

and colors, easy to buy and cheap. The storeboxes are easy to stack

in each other, lightweighted and strong. The scooter looks on the water

like an insect. I bought the propeller in a nautic shop for 15 euro.

The floater volume:

Measure the weight on the forewheel and the backwheel in my case it's

80 kg back and 40 kg front. The content of a 50cm skippyball is 65 liter,

a common storebox has a volume of 25 liter.

Inflating and deflating the floaters is done by a 12V electric pump. This

pump can be powered by the internal battery of the scooter.

The outboard engine's propeller is driven by a cordless drill. To make a

longer boattrip the drill can also be powered by the scooter battery